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On Nov. 11, 2017, at a TEDxNewBedford event held at the Zeiterion, Brown University’s Dr. Jonathan “Jake” Kurtis discussed the research process behind developing vaccines for pediatric malaria. Audrey Kertscher, then just 10 years old, stared back at Kurtis from the Zeiterion’s darkened house seats as he spoke about the critical importance of his research. She was enthralled.
“It’s really what got me interested in his work in the first place,” Kertscher said. Four years later, after completing her freshman year at Dartmouth High School, Kertscher reached out to Kurtis and landed an unpaid internship at Brown University’s research labs, continuing the same work that first inspired her.
Kertscher spent the next four summers working in Kurtis’ lab, eventually being named as a co-author in a study that revealed a possible drug candidate for treating severe cases of malaria. She presented her findings last November at the American Society for Tropical Medicine and Hygiene’s (ASTMH) annual meeting in New Orleans.
Now graduated from Dartmouth, Kertscher is beginning her first year at Johns Hopkins University with a planned major in public health.
In an interview with The Light, Kertscher discussed her research at Brown, her work within the local community as a Playbook Initiative student trainer, the various extracurricular activities she was involved in at Dartmouth High School, and how to follow your passions at a young age without getting burned out.
New Bedford Light: How did you first get involved in your research at Brown? What did you learn about working in an academic research setting that you didn’t expect going into it?
Audrey Kertscher: So the person running the lab, Jonathan Kurtis, I saw his TED Talk when I was probably 10 years old, and it was about his discovery of this protein GARP, which is really what a lot of the malaria research is based on. And it’s really what got me interested in his work in the first place. And then later on, once I was not 10 years old, I reached out to him saying I was interested in getting involved in that research because I thought it was so interesting. From there I did some internship years, and then I got more and more involved as I went on.
As for what I learned my first year, well, one of the most surprising things I learned was that it moves a lot slower than you would think. A lot of times you will take hours just typing up notes, trying to figure out, OK, this experiment didn’t work, what mistake did we make and how can we fix this in the future? Or, oh, we didn’t get the results that we thought we were going to get. Why did this happen? So I think it definitely was more slower moving than I kind of would have expected at the beginning.
I feel like I learned a lot my first year about that scientific process and going from hypothesis to experiment to then questioning why you got the results that you did.
NBL: This experience culminated last November in you co-authoring a paper about a new malaria discovery. I’m curious what you can tell me about the discovery, what the process of researching it was like, and how it felt to present those findings at the ASTMH conference last year.
AK: So, it’s a candidate for a malaria treatment. We found that there’s a broader category of drugs that we thought might possibly have an impact on treating malaria. And then from there we narrowed that down to a smaller group of drugs, saying “oh, these are the ones that we’re going to do the experiments with and we’re going to see how these kill.”
From that point, we found this one specific drug that showed really great killing potential in cultured malaria parasites. That’s the basic steps that we took in order to find that drug candidate, and then from there we’re moving forward with it to see if it is a fully viable treatment candidate for malaria.
Presenting these findings, personally, I just think it was very fulfilling for me because there’s so much research that goes on, so many different universities, so many different groups, and being part of one that really, I physically saw this work moving forward, and I feel like that really hit me for the first time when I got to present my findings at the conference. Because I really could see it for the first time, like, wow, this work really is moving forward. This work really has the potential to save millions of lives every year. So I think that was probably the most fulfilling part of that.
NBL: Is the work that you’re doing now at Brown a continuation of these findings?
AK: So there are multiple different groups within the lab that work on different things. Some groups are working on vaccine-related drug trials, while some others are working on more treatment-related drug trials. We’re still moving forward with research with that same drug candidate, but we are also working on a couple of other candidates at the same time, while also working on a handful of vaccine candidates. There are a lot of different drugs that we’re working with right now, and they all have really great potential.
NBL: In addition to your work at Brown, you were selected last year as a Playbook Initiative student trainer. Could you tell me a little bit about what that initiative is and what your role in it was?
AK: So the Playbook Initiative is a foundation that’s partnered with the Boston Celtics and also Project 351. It’s an initiative that’s focused on teaching younger kids, mostly middle school students, about inclusion and diversity and teaching them how to stand up against ideas like homophobia, racism, and other discriminatory acts.
As the high school trainers, we get trained by the organization’s leaders and then we take that training that they gave us and we pass that down to the middle schoolers. We lead workshops with those middle schoolers and we teach them. For example, we’ll give them a situation and we’ll say, “OK, if you were in this situation, would you know what to do?” We teach them what to do in that situation, and we also teach them to spread those lessons. We always say it creates a ripple effect within the community.
We have about 30 kids this year. We’re teaching this handful of 30 kids how to be upstanders instead of bystanders in discriminatory situations and then those kids are going out into the world and spreading this if they see it in their school or if they see it on a soccer field or really anywhere. We’ve had a lot of the kids saying that they have put these practices in play in their lives already, and that they also love using the ripple effect. They’re already seeing the ripple effect that they’re making.
NBL: You were also involved in a variety of different extracurriculars at DHS and had leadership roles in many of them. What do you see as the value of these activities, both in terms of the fulfillment you get from joining different kinds of communities, and also in terms of presenting yourself as a well-rounded student?
AK: I definitely was very focused in my high school career on being a very well-rounded student, because I am very deeply interested in STEM and sciences, but I also have a passion for the arts. I was the president of the Dartmouth High School Theatre Company, and I was in five total shows with them. I was also president of Dynamics, which is the Dartmouth Show Choir community. So for me, it was a mixture of I really wanted to show that I was this well-rounded student who wasn’t focused solely on just academics, and also just the fact that I just love performing. I have a passion for it. If I got too stressed out at school or at work, I always felt at home and relaxed performing on stage. So I think it was definitely a mix of both passion and being a well-rounded student.
NBL: Was it ever overwhelming juggling all these different commitments and activities? How did you keep yourself from getting burned out?
AK: There were definitely some instances when I was in high school where I would feel overwhelmed. Especially junior year; that is a very stressful time. And I really think that for me, some of the main ways I kind of dealt with that stress were reaching out for help through my parents or my teachers or even people who were in the clubs I was in, like my theater company, Dynamics, or student council. I always found that they would be really helpful.
If I ever reached out to a teacher and was like, “I’m so busy, I’m sorry, I didn’t have time to do this project,” they were always very understanding. They would work with me to work through that and make sure that I was still able to stay on top of everything while not feeling too overwhelmed.
And I do think that being part of those extracurriculars like theater and show choir — those helped me feel less overwhelmed, almost because it was an escape from all of the academic pressure and stress. It could get very overwhelming, but at DHS there was really great community support. So I felt anytime that I was getting very overwhelmed or stressed or anything, there was always a teacher or administrator that I could reach out to for help.
NBL: You’ll be entering Johns Hopkins University on a pre-med track, majoring in public health. How did your experience at Brown contribute to your preparedness for your next chapter?
AK: I think in this day it’s really important to get that hands-on work prior to going to college, surprisingly. And I really think that having the opportunity to work in the lab and get that hands-on work really let me know that I had that passion for science. I think that that really helped kind of direct me where I wanted to go for college and it even helped me decide that I wanted to major in public health rather than biology. I feel like it really helped me narrow my focus.
NBL: Sometimes people your age have trouble finding and expressing their passions that early. You’ve put yourself out there a lot so far in your life, and you’ve followed an academic passion that perhaps doesn’t make great small talk all the time. What advice would you have for your peers who might have similar interests and want to get involved like you have, but are scared about those initial steps?
AK: I really just think it is so important to follow your passion. For me, it was when I was looking at different majors. Originally, I was looking at maybe biology or neuroscience or something like that. When I found public health, which is not really what you think of when someone is going to the sciences, I was definitely like, “I don’t really know if this is what I want to focus on.” But the more I read into it, the more I realized that is what I want to do, this is what I have a passion for. It was finding that that made me decide to continue with it and really focus on public health.
And I think that the most important thing is just that if you have a passion, follow it, because you will always have people there to support you and people there to kind of guide you through it, even if it might not seem like the most normal thing to do. Do what you love, because if you end up doing what you love, you know it’s never going to feel like you’re working a day in your life.
NBL: Are you planning on continuing with lab work post-college, or are you going to explore something else within the field?
AK: I’m planning on going to med school. I absolutely love the lab work, but I can really see myself in a more clinical setting. I really want to go into emergency medicine, trauma surgery, stuff like that. So the plan is to go to med school and then become a clinician in the emergency department.
NBL: What advice can you offer from your experiences?
AK: The biggest piece of advice that I have is just, in high school and in middle school, explore all passions. That is one of the things that I’m most grateful that I did. I didn’t join theater until my sophomore year. I was too nervous to do it at first, and I just can’t imagine what my life would have been if I hadn’t joined. Same with show choir. My biggest advice is just to explore all passions, because you never know what’s going to create that spark of interest for you. When you find that spark, really chase it, really stick with it.
Brendan Rego is a freelance writer and contributor to The New Bedford Light.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
